


Better Days

by Salmagundi



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coping with Death, Drug Use, F/M, Kind of time travel, M/M, Mindfuck, What's even real here?, altered perceptions, canon compliant character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:04:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmagundi/pseuds/Salmagundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our perception of time is linear.  It's all that keeps us going forward, lashed to the strict path from past to future, from then to now.  To lose our grip on that guiding thread is to invite madness.</p><p>Jimmy McGill has lost his way after Marco's death... and he's not even sure he wants to find it again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Days

 

It was 2 AM and steam was rising from the manhole covers in long, clutching spirals, creeping along the ground with the tenacity of a living thing. The flickering brightness of the streetlamps turned the roiling surface white, the neon from the bar sign added blue to the rippling surface.

Jimmy stepped into the street and the billows of fog surged around his legs, parting just in front of him with every step. His eyes followed the motion of it, the biting cold of the air never quite reaching beneath his knees. He turned his head, neon lights reflecting on the pale lines of his face, flushing his skin turqouise, turning the blue of his eyes to purple. "Come on, already!" He called out, hearing the slight trip in his own words.

He was fucking drunk. Goddamn. If he could tell it himself, he knew it was bad. The fog on the street was seeping its way into his brain, curling tendrils along his senses. His fingers twitched, hands curling around each other. The tips of his fingers brushed at the cool surface of the ring on his pinky and he felt the jolt go through him. His feet took him forward, a stumble, then a dash that drove him skidding to his knees, his hands braced against the rough surface of the bar's adjoining wall as he retched.

It went on forever, more than he'd known he had in his entire body. On and on, until his insides felt empty, stripped with sandpaper and raw. His breath rasped in his throat, echoing in the alley as he tore his nails against the brick and the mortar.

None of those pains mattered. It was the other pain he couldn't drive away.

Staccato whimpers echoed around him in the dark, small harsh noises of pain, and it took him too long - far, far too long - to realise that they were coming from him.

The fog lapped around his thighs, crawled across his waist and lower back and he let himself slide down the surface of the wall until his elbows hit the floor and the damp heat of the steam from the road and the sewers surged across the slight hump of his curled body like a living, hungry, thing.

Swallowing him up. Hiding him from the world.

In the dark of the alleyway, splattered with his own filth and the grime of the Chicago streets, surrounded by the acrid stench of garbage and vomit, Jimmy McGill poured his pain out to the uncaring stone and steel of the city that had given him birth.

Nobody came. There was nobody left to come.

He was alone.

-

He stretched out, felt the cool rasp of the sheets against his bare legs and turned, burrowing into the blankets.  The heel of his foot slid from beneath the coverlet and the chill of the air drove him to retreat once again, burying his face against the solid warmth of Marco's body, wafting a long breath against the back of Marco's neck.  His fingers traced an idle pattern and in the haze of post-sleep, he could feel the roughness of brick instead of the slide of smooth cotton.

A moment later he jolted awake, his breath coming harder, heaving in his chest in silent gasps. 

It took a few seconds more before the awareness sank in.  The dim light filtering in from the other room.  Marco's stupid crushed velvet painting of Elvis leaning against the wall.  And Marco...

Jimmy's hands flew to brush over Marco's skin again, feeling the warmth of it beneath his fingertips.  He wasn't sure what crazy dream he'd just had... the details were fading... but there was still something sitting heavy in his gut, unsettling him.  He curled himself in as close as he could get, pressing against Marco like he could somehow fuse to his skin.

"Not again, Jimmy." Marco's voice slurred, low and amused.  "'m tired."

The laugh rising in Jimmy's throat sounded like a sob.  "Go back to sleep, asshole."

He waited until Marco settled, easing back in as slowly as he could, resting his head against Marco's shoulder and staring past him hazily, toward the wall.  For just a moment he thought it was a different colour.  A different pattern.  Plain and covered with grime.

Jimmy closed his eyes and willed the alleyway out of his mind.

Crazy dream. That's all it was.

His eyes fixed on the slowly turning hands of the clock as he tried to lure himself back to sleep.

It was only 2:25 AM.

"Fucking clock is fast.." he murmured.

He knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep.  He knew it.  And yet by the time he'd convinced himself that he wasn't going to, he'd already been dragged under again.

-

 


End file.
